


The Baby Blanket

by whatwecan



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Angst, Daddy!Hardy, Flashback, Knitting!Hardy, No really this is pretty angsty, One Shot, Other, Post Sandbrook, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-16 02:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8083909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatwecan/pseuds/whatwecan
Summary: Following the fallout of the Sandbrook debacle, Hardy says goodbye to his daughter before leaving for Broadchurch.





	

The night was unseasonably cold. By now Hardy had spent so many sleepless nights on the station room bunk, that all he wanted to do as he walked up the gravel drive to the cottage, was go inside and crawl into his own bed. He palmed his pants pocket absentmindedly before he caught himself. The keys wouldn’t be there. In any case, Tess opened the door in any case as he raised his fist to knock. He fumbled it back into his pocket as she regarded him silently. 

“She’s asleep.” She said, finally. “I would’ve kept her up for you but it’s class tomorrow.” Alec nodded. Not quite sure what to say in the face of his wife’s stoicism. Of course she wouldn’t stay up for him. In her brief life, Daisy had probably gone to sleep before he’d come home from work, more times than she had in his arms. 

He’d told himself it was just the sacrifice a good father had to make for the sake of his career, but where had that gotten him? An embarrassment? A broken marriage, and his career in shambles?

Tess stepped aside to let him through the doorway, and for once, once, he thought he saw a flicker of guilt cross her face, thought he heard a whisper of apology in her voice. He looked around, the messy living room, Tess’s things dumped, and carelessly spilling off the lone overstuffed armchair. His home that was no longer his home. The home he had brought his baby girl home to, and that he would never sleep in again. 

“Tess, I…”

“You can go upstairs if you like. Say goodbye.” Tess made a gesture to the stairs, interrupting him. “I’ve packed your things. I can send them if you like, once you get there.” 

His things? He’d packed a suitcase a few days ago when all this had blown up. A suit, a few shirts, pajama bottoms. Enough to work in, enough to live in. What else mattered? Anything he truly wanted he’d be leaving here behind him. 

Tess stayed downstairs, arms crossed and staring into a corner as Hardy trudged upstairs. Daisy’s room was at the end of the hall, he’d always liked it that way. Some distant, paranoid, corner of his mind reasoning that if anyone tried to get to her in the night, they’d have to get past him first. But tonight he was the intruder. And so he carefully averted his eyes as he passed Tess and his room. He didn’t want to see it, the empty hangers where his clothes had been, the missing picture frames, the bed they’d once shared. 

Daisy was snoring lightly. Her bed up against the far wall, across a sea of preteen detritus. Clothes, and dolls, and toys she’d long since out grown shared space with a melted tube of lipgloss and fashion magazines she’d only recently started reading. Hardy toed his way through, careful lest he wake her.

In her sleep she seemed so… small. Fragile. God… Hardy had to cover his mouth to keep a sob from escaping him, as unwanted visions hit him of holding another girl her size, wet in his arms. Daisy had kicked her blankets off and was curled around a soft pink blanket. Her baby blanket, he'd made it for her himself. She still slept with it. He fingered her hair softly, fighting the urge to just climb into bed beside her like he used to to when she was little.

Today he’d helped a woman end the life of her child. He remembered when Tess told him she was pregnant. They’d just been dating, and it was unplanned, but the minute he’d heard there’d be a child… god he’d wanted her so bad. 

Hardy loosened the knit blanket carefully from Daisy’s grasp and spread it over her. It was cold, and would get colder still. Tess had always laughed at him, said he looked like a grandfather, not a father with his bifocals and knitting needles, but he’d worked his love into every stitch of that blanket, waiting for her to come. 

He could feel the weight of tears, trembling in his eyes, and so Hardy bent down hastily to press a gentle kiss to his sleeping daughter’s cheek. “Goodbye, my love. I’ll see you soon.” He was about to turn to leave when he heard her soft sleepy mumble. 

“Papa?”

Hardy turned back and crouched beside her bed, stroking a wisp of hair from her face. “You’re supposed to be asleep.” 

Daisy rubbed her cheek drowsily where he had kissed her. “ ‘s scratchy.”

“I know baby, I just came in to say goodnight.”

“Ok.” she mumbled. “G'night Papa. I love you.”

“I love you too sweetheart. I love you too.”


End file.
